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Roam: Chapter 05
Chapter 5 Characters * [[2669 Venitsal the Deserter|'Venitsal the Deserter']] * Cloval * Somersal * Dust * [[Herebal|'Herebal']] * Corbral the Cripple * Felissal * Lugil Locations * Venitsal's Office * Lugil's Inn Contents Venitsal the Deserter The sun was setting far to the west, its light finding every crack in the floor and breaking through the peaceful dark of Venitsal’s office to slash orange and stab pink up his walls, the eerie shapes sliding up and across the room, occasionally picking out some mote of dust before it could slip back into anonymity. Where had the day gone, again? He ran a hand over the bottom half of his face, feeling the rough mixture of stubble and increasingly leathery skin, reflecting in the gloom of times when he had wished for each day to pass with each waking second, and days which had slipped by unnoticed and unmourned by him, wrapped in a lover’s torpor, never suspecting that each would be etched upon him regardless, his features caught under the downwards tug of Time’s relentless fingertips. He was not old – though he did not know his exact age – but had crossed the line, visible only once passed, where the approach of night seemed to be counting down to the other, final line rather than counting up, and wasted days like these bit all the harder. His desk was a mess: uncopied wax tablets of crossed out names; scraps of papyrus with illegible yesterday thoughts; empty bags, once of coins, now only commemorated by the inscribed ivory tags engraved with the days that the named money lender had weighed and sealed them. It was money that he couldn’t afford to be wasting on fruitless bribes, yet the coins were gone, along with all the cheerful smiles he could muster today, and he was no closer to finding Teleron. He wondered which of his enemies, or which of the gods he had no doubt offended, might be lampooning him with this ridiculous job, both too good to refuse and too good to believe. And that client, all balls and beauty… Venitsal was no fool; he knew his own weaknesses as well as Black Ben did: if Juctor were sending a spirit to punish him for his relationship to his sacral law, a girl like that would be the perfect form for it to take. But she was real enough for Ben and Norbil to have seen her; Venitsal just hoped that her money would turn out to be real enough to cover these expenses – if he could muster the energy to write them up, that was. The slats and speckles of sun were fattening in their travels, gasping through red and purple as they faded away, leaving the candles hanging near his desk and the faintest blue from the glowshrooms as the only light once again. Sunset was getting late as Roam ventured through Nelunty, the fields beneath them now more yellow than green. Venitsal wondered for a self-distracting few seconds whether World-Beasts could feel temperature, and then why in the world Roam would venture south into Inachria for the baking summer months this year, and up to squally Scrutany for the winter. Much smarter men than him, with much more time on their hands, had spent their lives asserting and debating the nature of these moving mountains, with every proposed universal law immediately contradicted by a counterexample from faraway lands or times. Some things were just beyond men, and beyond their capabilities, and that would always be the case. Venitsal had made his peace with that a long time ago – he had had to, because the explanations for the cruelties he had seen as a slave, as a soldier, and afterwards, were beyond his capability to accept. If there were gods – and Venitsal had seen enough misery to convince him that there were and that there couldn’t possibly be – that was surely where they lived, not trundling along amongst the stars above, forever fleeing Time’s grasp, but in the space between what men could know and could allow themselves to know, and what truly was. What Venitsal didn’t know, and what he was distracting himself from, was where Norbil was. Since he had sent Ben out to find him a couple of hours ago, his guts had coiled ever tighter around an icicle, with the grim surety of one of Venitsal’s hunches. A thousand banal things might have waylaid him, sure, Venitsal’s head knew that, but the gods didn’t talk to Venitsal at his head, and the message he was receiving in the pit of his stomach was grave. Had he pushed the boy too hard? Ben would have laughed at the idea that he ever put his junior partner in danger, and had indeed nearly done so when Venitsal had sent him back out topside until he had seen the grim fear in his eyes. But Ben had a fairly damaged compass for such things underneath the toothy smiles, having been raised by the whip and the arena. Norbil had never been a slave, and never killed anyone, let alone his own brothers for applause. He was a native of the Underbelly but somehow untainted by it, like the white flowers which had bloomed in the blood-soaked battlefields of Crylalt, begging Venitsal to come home. He had promised Norbil’s parents that he would protect him, and he had as beast as he could. He remembered watching them disappear down the ladder, wondering what desperation they felt which could make his life seem like an escape for their golden-haired little boy, and silently vowing to protect him better than they had, like he would have his own son. And now he was sat there feeling that dread, and wished he had never been so foolish. He reran that day’s events another time, or at least what the plan for the day had been. Teleron was an Issycrian name, so Venitsal had banked on finding some clues from his contacts in the Lovers’ Forum between the Candomine and Juctorine Hills, which had a lot of learned Issycrians, many of them freedmen, offering their services as tutors, translators or even philosophers or poets, or the Law Forum the other side of the Juctor Palace, before the Qualine Hill. During Venitsal’s lifetime, the bureaucrats and paralegal slaves that kept the Roaman legal and political systems running seemed to have become Inachrians to a man, instilled with the tiresomely fussy work ethic of the Sellanic world. Teleron seemed not to be an uncommon name, and a few coins had led him to some nonplussed civic slaves operating in the bowels of the Juctor Courts with the name who surely weren’t who the client was searching for (though Venitsal had naturally taken down their details anyway). The larger slave dealers in both fora with whom Venitsal had cultivated relationships over the years had let him glance over their books, waiving the writ from a serving Marshal (or Sentinel or Consul, or Governor in the Provinces) that was usually required in favour of the coins pressed into their hands which lubricated so much of supposedly respectable Roaman society. His falling finger had caught on several instances of the name Teleron (and a few Terelons too, raising the possibility that the client had misheard of misread the name, a possibility Venitsal intended to suggest as their planned meeting) who had been sold in this year of the Consuls Coughy Pagnal Juctor and Hessal Varagy, or the last under Pampal Candoam and Cuinsal Pagnucy, some of which corroborated with the civic slaves he had tracked down. He had noted all of the leads down, of course, but none of the buyers or sellers named in the ledgers had triggered any sense in Venitsal that chimed with the repressed urgency that he had detected in the client – not that he knew the name and character of every citizen, of course, but he had not tripped across a name that gave him so much as a flutter of a hunch like he was consumed by now. There were other possibilities, lots of them: purchases through pseudonyms or third parties, private sales without a broker, transactions from longer ago than last year, or sales kept off the books to avoid taxes. Usually Venitsal had more to go on than a name, and he wasn’t prepared to throw more money away, even if he had it, at the already profiteering slavemasters topside without ruling out what little he had already found with the client, especially when it felt as much of a dead end to him as this all did. Ben had accompanied Venitsal throughout the day, operating under their assumption that the Lovers’ and Law fora were the best bets, and that four eyes would be better than two – and that Venitsal seemed to pay a little less in bribes when he was shadowed by the looming Mughannean. Norbil was to undertake a shallower sweep of the two lower fora outside the Upper City, where the smaller and less reputable merchants who couldn’t afford a berth in the upper fora inside the Cabrital Walls hawked their wares, and the two remaining upper fora (if he had time and could talk his way past the Upper City gates): the confusingly named Far Forum, which was as close to the Senate Hill as all the upper fora, which specialised in exotic goods from distant lands, and the Blood Forum which dealt largely in weapons, armour and chattel, as well as gladiatorial and charioteer slaves. Venitsal wasn’t discounting the possibility that the mysterious Teleron would turn up in one of these fora rather than the two he had focussed upon, but they didn’t feel quite like they chimed with the Familial, aristocratic nature of the client. The days of Issycrian slaves – or even Treacians, either of the Black or White variety, which could also perhaps be named Teleron – being considered exotic enough for the Far Forum were long gone, unless Teleron had some valuable deformity such as dwarfism or extra fingers which could fetch a nice premium as a talking point over dinner. Teleron could conceivable be a sports slave, Venitsal supposed, perhaps from the Games of Olives, but he would then have expected Ben to recognise the name, as the ex-gladiator still kept up with the games (a little perversely in Venitsal’s opinion). Given the unlikelihood of a match in any of these fora, Venitsal had given Norbil only a little money to grease palms and instructions to hit as many merchants as possible, not pressing anyone too hard but noting any flickers of recognition for Venitsal to follow up on if his own investigations ran as dry as they indeed had. It shouldn’t have taken this long, or anywhere near this long. Venitsal had half-expected to find him waiting for them when they had returned, already copying up his findings from wax to papyrus, ready to compare their results with bright eyes. Such pretty eyes, wasted on a boy – or at least a boy on Roam, in the dark of the Underbelly. The only time they had truly misunderstood each other, as Venitsal, horrified, had pushed Norbil’s hands away from his own belt, feeling the sour, foreign breath of wine flutter across his lips, those eyes had been so close and so bright, full of intent confusion. In his deepest, Venitsal knew that he had hesitated for that moment before turning his face away, explaining slowly and firmly that Norbil had misread, and that Venitsal had not taken him in for such ulterior purposes, nor did he expect repayment of any sort for his patronage: the work that Norbil did as his junior partner would earn his keep and more. How optimistic he had been; how sure of their efforts being repaid by just gods. But he had dragged the boy with him into debt and mortal peril. Had his chief lender Common Gralbal, who had become most impatient and unreasonable since being elected a Bursar of Roam this year, sent his boys to follow Norbil, or recognised him upside and moved against him, hurting or kidnapping him to send a – quite redundant – message to Venitsal somehow? But if he had, why was Venitsal having to guess that? Why weren’t they in his office when he came back, his things smashed to bits with a threat daubed on the wall? Gralbal wasn’t smart enough to be playing mind games, and not stupid enough to be this incompetent. Since she had walked into his office, nothing had made sense – not just the things which he was comfortable in knowing that it was impossible to know, but the things that he felt that he ought to know seemed to be dancing away from him. The inn beyond his office door suddenly became much louder, a commotion of raised voices and scraping stools. Venitsal instinctively reached for the dagger at his waist, still concealed under his tunic due to the ban on blades within the walls of Roam. His limbs prickled with sudden anticipation as he silently pivoted round on his chair, placing his feet down softly and skirting his desk, knife ready low in his right hand as he pressed his left ear to the door. He blinked in confusion once, twice, trying to make sense of what he could hear outside. Laughter. One voice above all, speaking to the others. Performing? Still wielding the dagger out of sight, Venitsal cracked the door ajar, letting the smells and sounds of the boozy alehouse wash into his dim seclusion. Cloval was stood high on a bar stool, reading something off a dirty strip of cloth, the other patrons gathered round, in stitches at his recital. “''Your tits are like sunflowers,” Cloval read, grinning squiffily, “''I squeeze them, but they do not wilt. “''Your'' – I need to stress that each your is misspelled, and not consistently – your lips are like wine, “''That I need to drink to not be drunk.”'' “I’d rather not get drunk off her sunflower tits!” whooped Somersal, drinking deep from his clay mug in satisfaction at his heckle, which was admittedly well received. “''Come with me, maid of Scrutany, into your scared woods,” Cloval continued. “I assume he means ‘sacred’.” “Is he going to come into her sacred bush?” giggled young Dust, who had been with them since the Vaeran Well. “''The spirits will play flutes and –” The front door to the inn burst open, and Venitsal’s fingers renewed their grip on the dagger. He hadn’t seen the man glowering at Cloval from the doorway in nearly five years, and never in such finery. His grey tunic was taut across his broad shoulders, and strapped down to his body by leather straps that emphasised his athletic and curated build. His brow had always been creased, but now the years and his fury left it a pile of wrinkles above his deep-set eyes. He was unarmed to Venitsal’s eye, but if skinny Cloval found himself at the mercy of those twitching muscles then he didn’t stand a chance. “Herebal!” Cloval threw his arms open in welcome. “Your poems are proving even more popular than you had hoped!” “You thieving, cunt-faced rat!” bellowed Herebal, starting towards him. The inn exploded into action. Several patrons tried to restrain Herebal, with arms and fruitless words; Cloval scrabbled down off his stool, nearly toppling it and quite possibly breaking through the floor had some others not come to his aid. Lugil bellowed incomprehensibly from behind the bar, jabbing his thick fingers at everything and nothing. Corbral the Cripple came out of nowhere wielding one of the cut-throat cues with gleeful abandon. Felissal, the old man, drank calmly in his natural position at the far end of the bar, as if he were death and blind rather than just cynical and unflappable. The commotion set the dogs off, both of them howling and scrapping around as if they were still puppies, betrayed by their creaking limbs and drooping skins. Venitsal sheathed his knife again, letting the door fall open as he found a little distraction in the spectacle. Eventually both belligerents were pinned in place – and Corbral disarmed – and the patrons returned to merrily spectating as they shouted past one another. “Quiet!” bellowed Lugil for the fourth or fifth time, which for some reason seemed to do the trick. Cloval and Herebal had exhausted their fury, and panting, broke into laughter. “You’re still a fucking arsehole, then?” Herebal asked. “Why change a winning habit?” Cloval grinned, levering himself up to his feet with the help of a few patrons. “Are you still in the habit of buying old friends drinks so that they don’t knock out your teeth?” Herebal asked, dusting off his tunic as he followed suit, ruffling the wrinkled folds of the old Straequian war dogs that clearly remembered him. “Certainly,” Cloval said, holding up two fingers to Lugil, who nodded gruffly, muttering something in Straequian under his breath. “Especially when I’ve actually given them a reason to.” “When did you discover your talent, Herebal?” asked Somersal. “I never claimed any talent, you prick,” Herebal said over his shoulder as he moved to the bar, the regulars all crowding around. Except for Felissal, of course. “They weren’t supposed to be read. Ever.” “Not even by the Scrutan Maid?” asked Dust with the romantic earnestness of youth. “Especially not her,” Herebal said. He frowned at Dust. “Lugil, who is this kid?” “He’s Scrutan like your lady,” Lugil said, pouring out the beers from the barrels. “Nobody could be bothered to pronounce his Scrutan name, so we just called him Dust.” “I’m travelling down to Inachria, sir, to train at the statuary school in Ismis, under the master Euthon.” Leaning back on the bar with a beer in hand, Herebal glanced around at his audience, wondering whether he should care. “Good luck with that, kid, whatever it is. No, the poems are just writing practice: I need to pass the literacy exams if I’m going to make Centurion.” “You, a Centurion?” scoffed Cloval into his mug. “Yeah, me,” Herebal scowled. “A Centurion. Why not?” “Come on,” said Cloval. “You’re one of us. You can have dreams, Herb, but you know you’ll always be an Underbelly dog like us.” “It’s not like that any more,” Herebal shook his head. “Not under Curly Coltal.” He noticed Venitsal looming in the doorway opposite for the first time, and fixed him with a look. “He doesn’t care about family, or wealth, or friends in high places. His whole army is made of dogs, and those of us who serve best get promoted and rewarded for our service. It’s like they always said the legions used to be: honour and brotherhood, and glory for glory.” “Wow, it sounds like you’re going to write about taking Curly Coltal into the sacred woods,” Cloval smirked. “You can make all the jokes you want,” Herebal shrugged. “For the first time in my life, I’m fighting for something, rather than just because I was told to. You’ve never seen an army fight like this – like it wants to.” “It’s not an army,” Lugil grunted. “It’s a glorified retinue for a grasping self-promoter. You never saw the Third in full flow.” He tapped three fingers against the tattoo on his shoulder. “Oh, it’s an army, believe me,” Herebal said. “And Candoam is a greater commander than Hyberital ever was.” “Pah!” ejaculated Felissal from his end of the bar, but did not see fit to expand upon his disagreement. “So, did your friend Curly Coltal advise you to apply for this promotion to Centurion, then?” asked Derbal, chewing on the beer-drenched end of his ridiculous grey moustache. “I haven’t actually spoken to the Governor directly,” Herebal admitted, “but his closest lieutenant Thorny Cuinsal personally commended me for the discipline and courage of my tent when we fought the Tregurian tribe at Three Rivers.” “I read about that,” said Somersal. “An incredible victory.” “Quite,” Lugil sniffed. “Candoam walks his men into an obvious trap and writes as if it was some great manoeuvre.” “He won the battle,” Herebal pointed at the barkeeper with his mug. “With minimal losses, against the odds.” “Not quite the odds Curly claims though, I’ll reckon,” Lugil said. “Not losing that few men.” “You can believe whatever you want to believe, old man,” Herebal smiled, though Venitsal reckoned that there couldn’t be more than ten or fifteen years between them. “I was there. I know what I saw, and what we did.” “Is it all true?” asked Corbral, his eyes twinkling. “Everything, and more,” Herebal smiled warmly at the cripple. “Life is different out there beyond the edge of the world. Boys are men, and men are heroes.” “I can’t listen to this bollocks any more,” Lugil tutted. “If you’re going to suck Candoam’s cock, do it away from my bar.” Herebal chuckled, pushing himself off the bar with his elbows and walking across towards Venitsal, followed by a few of the younger, more wide-eyed regulars. “Take me with you,” said Corbral, struggling to limp at the same speed as Herebal walked. I want to fight beyond the edge of the world.” “I would, Corbral,” Herebal put his mug down on the table beside Venitsal’s door and turned, placing a hand on the cripple’s upper arm, “but I can’t. There are few things I’m afraid of in this world, Corbral, but your mother is definitely one of them.” “I’m a man,” Corbral insisted. “Seventeen, Herebal. She doesn’t choose for me.” “No,” Herebal shook his head. “She doesn’t. But I can’t. Not now.” “Why have you come back?” asked Corbral. “Why aren’t you in the North?” The question caused Herebal to freeze for a second as he began to sit down. He had never been quick of tongue. He glanced up at Venitsal, who was very much interested in the answer. “I’ll tell you, Corbral, but it has to remain out little secret,” he said, his eyes on Venitsal’s. “I promise,” said Corbral, his voice hushed. “And you can’t ask me to take you with me again,” Herebal added. “Ever?” “At least for another year, let’s say,” Herebal chuckled, brushing his short black hair back into its parting. “Deal?” “Deal.” Herebal beckoned the boy closer, looking around theatrically. “Curly Coltal is coming to Roam.” “Here?” Corbral said sharply before hushing himself. “Now?” “Here. Now.” “Why?” “We don’t know,” Herebal smiled. “There are lots of rumours. Personally, I hope he is going to sweep away all of the soft-handed politicians upside and make Roam a meritocracy like his army. A fresh start for the Republic, with a fair chance for people like you and me.” “You’ll let Thorny Cuinsal know that I wanted to fight for him?” Corbral asked. “That I want to be a part of this new Roam?” “He’ll know,” Herebal promised, clapping him affectionately on the shoulder a little too firmly for the cripple not to teeter. “Now run along, will you? I want to have a word with my old friend Venitsal.” “Yes, sir,” Corbral saluted feebly and headed back to the bar, taking his young entourage who had also been privy to the ‘secret’. Herebal Venitsal shook his head down at Herebal. “You shouldn’t mock him like that.” “What?” Herebal said innocently, lifting his mug. “Giving him hope that there might be something to live for?” “Exactly,” Venitsal muttered. He looked like shit, his eyes shaded by dappled indigo, his once rich tan faded into sallow. “That bad, eh?” Herebal laughed darkly. “Sit down. Let’s talk about it.” “Nah,” Venitsal shook his head. “Private stuff.” “Then sit down and let’s not talk about it, Ven. That Mugger still following you around?” “If you’re referring to Ben, then yes, but not right now.” “Ven without Ben?” Herebal drew the beer from the mug round his teeth, letting it wash across his palate a bit before swallowing. It wasn’t good by any measure, but it was hearty and familiar, the sort of mundane comfort that one yearned for beyond the borders of the Republic, where the men tried to ferment their own in secret in their tents. “Serious stuff. Money troubles?” “Is there another kind?” Ven smiled wryly, hesitating before lowering himself onto the stool opposite Herebal. The waist of his tunic stood out slightly, likely a hidden knife. Things were probably pretty bad then. The Deserter ran a hand through his thick dark curls, which had picked up rings of grey around the temples in the five years that Herebal had been away. “Women troubles? Law troubles?” Herebal suggested. “Drinking troubles?” “Herb, those are just money troubles in disguise,” Ven smiled despite himself. “Except drinking, I suppose; it probably helps to be too poor to get drunk.” “I’ve been to every Province of Roam, Ven, and many kingdoms beyond, and I’ve still yet to meet a man who was too poor to get drunk.” Ven tapped the table three times, a submission signal from military training which veterans often used to concede defeat in an argument in good humour. “It’s hard to look at you like this,” Herebal said, honestly. They had been brothers, once, twenty years ago. Brothers in the truest sense, not bound by their own blood but by the blood they had spilt together to protect one another. “Then don’t look,” Ven said, probably contemplating leaving again. “I sort of wished you wouldn’t still be here,” Herebal said, looking into his beer as he swilled it around. “That you had made it out.” “Nobody makes it out, Herebal,” Ven said, without a trace of the cheeky optimism of his youth. “I did.” He had. “Then why are you here?” “Recruitment,” Herebal said, his thin eyebrows raising slightly even as Venitsal’s woolly ones furrowed downwards. “Corbral seemed keen,” Ven suggested. “Come on, Ven, I can’t take a cripple to Cuinsal without making a laughing stock of myself in front of the whole legion.” “Also, he would be killed,” Ven said hurtfully, as if Herebal had no concern for the boy’s safety. “I can bring in some of these pups, no problem,” Herebal chucked his hand out at some of the lads playing cut-throat or laughing at dirty jokes. “But Curly really wants veterans, especially veterans who want a fresh start.” “I don’t need your prince’s gold,” Ven said, fiddling with his coin purse. He placed a gold coin down on the table, tapping it for emphasis. “They’ve made it down here already, you know? Probably just as he’d hoped, but in a cunningly deniable way. They’re devaluing the local coins, swamping the market with his illegal spoils.” “Governors have a legal right to mint coins,” Herebal shrugged. He wasn’t a lawyer, or an economist. “You’d be more upset if he had hoarded the spoils of his successes. He is winning Roam glory while the rest of the Republic is happy to sit and stagnate, and passing on the riches to his legions, and you’re complaining that Roam has too many gold coins?” “Coins that portray Curly Coltal Candoam Juctor as Sun-Prince Kashtaran,” Ven held up the piece, showing the sun’s rays behind Curly Coltal’s profile, as if Herebal hadn’t seen them before. He had a pouch of his own full of them. “As a demi-god, if not more. Come on, Herb, we lived through this before. We know where this leads.” “We do,” Herebal said, his voice low. He leaned in towards his old friend, though Ven was in no mood to reciprocate. “It’s true what I said to Corbral. He is marching south.” “With his private army of cut-throats and mercenaries,” Ven shook his head. “That’s what I am to you, now?” Herebal’s fists clenched involuntarily. None of this return to his home had gone as planned. He might still be inclined to knock out that pickpocket rat Cloval’s teeth, after all. “Why would I join your illegal army, Herb?” Ven threw his hands up, evidently equally frustrated. He had some nerve. “You know, in the Civil Wars – and in the Provincial War before them, for that matter – the private armies we liked were called citizens’ militias, and those we didn’t were called illegal. The Republic,” Herb slammed his hand down for emphasis, causing Ven’s coins to jump around on the table, “has always relied on armed citizenry for its defence, beyond the legions.” “What defence, Herb?” balked Ven. “Roam has been at peace for a generation!” He was, of course, intentionally omitting the Home War against Trucidal in which they had both fought, and the ongoing conflict in Crylalt under Proud Machyal which the Senate was keen to hush up, as well as his campaigns against the pirates in the Issycrian Sound and Inner Sea. “There are enemies within the Republic,” Herebal hissed, hoping that Ven might lower his voice a little too. People were looking over. “Subverting it. Subverting democracy. Corrupt Senators. Career politicians and lawyers who have never held a sword, but dare to call soldiers defending the borders of the Republic traitors.” “Lawyers who might have unpopularly defended a deserter, for instance?” Ven rolled his eyes, the knot finally having cinched in his mind. “And might have become Consul and questioned the legitimacy of your Governor’s wars?” “I’m offering you the chance to jump to the winning side, Ven,” Herebal said, placing his hand over Ven’s balled fist on the table. “It’s not just the debts. Thorny Cuinsal can – Curly Coltal can make your history disappear. So what if you were a deserter? So what if Hessal defended you? We all made mistakes back then. Most of us didn’t have a choice. But this is our chance to make a decision. I’m begging you, Ven, for the brotherhood we once had, don’t be behind Hessal’s toga when Candoam gets here.” “I’m behind nobody’s toga,” snarled Ven, insisting on freeing his hand from under Herebal’s. “I haven’t seen Hessal in seven years. And I made my own choices back then, and I stand beside them now. Under the laws of the Republic, I am not a deserter, and I am not a murderer. The laws of the Republic still mean something to some of us.” “It means everything to all of us,” Herebal insisted. Why was Venitsal acting lick such a colossal idiot? Couldn’t he see that his stubbornness would be his suicide? “Then perhaps you’ll think twice about coming to my home” – as if it weren’t Herebal’s home too – “and threatening me unless I pat you on the back and tell you that selling yourself to a tyrant is fine, as long as we do it together.” “You’re out of line,” Herebal said, feeling his cheeks burn and his voice drop into a growl. “And misunderstanding me completely.” “I understand just fine,” Ven stood up, jabbing a finger at Herebal. “Just like it’s always been, it’s all about honour and brotherhood, so long as it is your honour, and your brotherhood. Glory for glory, as long as it is the tyrant’s glory, else it is threats and blood in the streets of Roam.” “Take your hand off your dagger, Ven,” Herebal warned calmly. His own dagger was already in his hand below the table, but Ven had a standing start on him. “You’ve made your point.” Venitsal looked down, almost looking surprised at the outline of his hand on the hilt of his blade under his tunic. It loosened, and Ven looked back at him without the fire in his eyes. “Sorry, Herb,” he stammered, his eyes even more haunted, which Herebal would not have guessed was possible. “I didn’t mean it, whatever I said. I’ve just got a lot on right now.” “You meant every word,” Herebal said sadly, standing up, his knife tucked away already. “And so did I. You’re the only brother I ever had, Ven, and that will be true not matter what you did, or why. Seeing you like this… The offer is always there – well, until it is too late, I suppose. If you change your mind, if you can get out of your way for once,” he gave his old friend a sad smile to make sure he meant that in kindness, not spite, “then find me.” Venitsal nodded mutely. Herebal was overcome by the sensation that he was trying to save a dead man, and steeled himself against a profound sadness. “Die well, brother,” he said. “Die well,” croaked Venitsal. ' ' Category:Chapter Category:Venitsal POV Chapter Category:Herebal POV Chapter